Abandoned by Booklikes

This book was a great look into Kinsey's past. We have heard offhand via the books that Kinsey was married twice. Her first marriage was to an ex-cop Mickey Macgruder and we know that Kinsey and he parted on bad terms. This book gives us even more information than what we were given before. Mickey was accused of murder and Kinsey bounced. She never talked to Mickey again after the divorce, but you start to see some glimmers in the man which probably is what led her to getting hooked up with her long-time lover Robert Dietz. This book does such a great job of developing Kinsey. She's like a pit-bull this entire book. Once she realizes that someone hurt Mickey and is setting her up to take the fall for it, she doesn't let go and her investigation leads her all the way back to the Vietnam War. 

"O is for Outlaw" has Kinsey at a bit of loose ends. When a storage vultuer (no idea what else to call the guy) calls Kinsey and tells her that a storage locker he bought has her stuff in it, he offers her cash for some of the belongings. Through that Kinsey realizes that her ex-husband Mickey has kept a ton of her things in this locker, but has stopped paying on it. When Kinsey gets her belongings back (l loved how she does that) she finds a letter sent to her which implies that Mickey was having an affair and was with his mistress at the time when Mickey was accused of killing some man. With that Kinsey starts trying to track down Mickey and get to the truth, which has her in the police's cross-hairs since someone out there is trying to make it seem as if Kinsey is part of whomever gunned down her ex.

Kinsey was great in this one. I think Grafton did a great job of showing that Kinsey was wrong about Mickey, and that her jealous over realizing the guy was cheating on her while married was actually understandable. You see her still feeling territorial over him, but also realizing that a lot of tricks she now employs she learned from him. At one point I did wonder was this book going to lead to Kinsey getting arrested, cause she seems to be dancing on the local police's nerves through this whole thing.

Other characters are fascinating to read about as well. Though we don't get any one on ones between Mickey and Kinsey, you get very good insight into him and what made him tick. You realize though the guy wasn't the greatest husband, he was actually a very good cop. 

Other people that Kinsey knew back in the day pop up in this one and that also helps you get a better sense of Kinsey too. She's kind of a prude is what someone says about her and I had to laugh at Kinsey's sense of outrage about that.

The writing actually moves at a fairly big clip. I wondered how Mickey's shooting could tie back to what happened years earlier and then when you find out what Mickey was up (investigation wise) I got even more hooked. It's a really fascinating story and there are a lot of moving parts in this one. The flow works from beginning to end and I really did feel a sense of sadness on how things ended in this one. Kinsey gets to the truth, but doesn't get to do a verbal amends.